Against Ezekiel's will, the Leopard inside urged him to follow Brandon.
Ezekiel simply clocked his exit instead, watching until Brandon had completely disappeared from sight, leaving behind the overpowering scent of his alluring blood on the air.
Mantilo easily ignored his abrupt exit and as everyone turned back to discussing the information that their Father had returned with....Ezekiel found his mind lingering, as it often did, on the meaning behind what Brandon had uttered moments ago.
You and those ugly beasts don't scare me....
Is what he had said to Mantilo, but that snide remark uttered in passing seemed deeper to Ezekiel. It had Ezekiel pondering silently.
So what the hell IS he afraid of? What is Brandon's story?
Ezekiel asked himself.
And for some unknown reason the idea of the answer to that question unsettled Ezekiel even more. And he wondered why someone he thought about this much...was still little more than a stranger to him.
***
Brandon didn't know when sleep claimed him that night, but it came after many useless hours of fretting, thinking and even worrying.
Worrying that one of the Shifter wouldn't return after going out after the Ghouls. To hunt them....to kill them.
But eventually exhaustion claimed him and in his sleep he found little peace.
One moment he was staring at his leather covered hands that were balled up on his pillow in front of him and the next he blinked as he felt the open air.
The sun sat like a strobe light in the open blue heavens and he stood, floating over a conflict beneath him. A beautiful Rosen color kissed the sun and for as long as he could Brandon wanted to focus on that. He wanted to look at the majestic and Unknown Mountain tops peeking out of the fog all around. This dream could so easily have been a happy experience, instead of the intense and endless nightmare that had plugged him all of his nights.
Brandon eventually looked down as the two strangers beneath him began to shout at each other and he saw himself. He saw a man that was him. Dirty blond hair, green eyes...but here the similarities ended. He spoke strange, he was grabbed in silks, and he was covered in blood and in his hand....he held a sword also dripping in blood. The stranger, this dreamlike version of Brandon was speaking to another man. Kail. They were having some dramatic confrontation as they always did in every dream.
Kail, with his familiar face screamed back. It made no sense for Brandon to recognize him, he didn't know either of the men that he saw in the dream personally. Brandon didn't understand why they fought. He didn't know why one of the strangers looked like him. It was a nightmare full of sadness, and agony and it never stopped and yet it all felt so real. Brandon's heart hurt as Kail rose his blade, his eyes stung as a sharp yellow flash of sunlight glanced off the blades length.
"No." Kail smiled over at Brandon's twin sadly as he always did in the dream, as though his heart was breaking. Kail raised the blade before him, strawberry light glancing off the silvery blade in his hands once more.
"I betrayed everything I know for a future. We all knew that there was no going back, not for me. Or for you. I'm embracing the evils I have committed today, so that we can have a future. I've made the choice to do this horrible terrible thing to my brother....All that remains is for us to settle the score." Kail finished.
And suddenly the light reflecting off his blade was blinding Brandon. He couldn't see, he couldn't hear, but God he could feel. His heart was falling apart! His bones were separating, he was without sensation, and yet flayed alive by it.
He screamed, but he didn't awaken.
Tonight it was too much, too strong. Too heart breaking. He felt like he was going to snap. And he didn't even know why.
He had to have something else, besides the pain and agony. Something.
"Brandon." A familiar voice called to him, pulling him out of the pain.
That baritone was instantly recognizable though he had only known it for a few weeks. The touch was familiar though he had only felt it briefly. Brandon blinked and suddenly he was in his room, on his bed....and naked. He felt the warm air on every inch of his skin, but he also felt the body of another pressed against him. Warm, and hard, and completely unclothed. Brandon gasped as a gentle, hand caressed his hips, then slipped doe and softly took his cock and teased it, playing the velvety flesh up and down, so that pleasure began to tighten in his loins.
"Brandon..." the familiar voice, Ezekiels voice, whispered like silk, begging, demanding, inside of his head, stroking Brandon's soul as the dream took him deeper. The hard body lying on top of him shifted and moved with Brandon on the sheets, warm skin and breathy cries and moans, ignited passions that seemed all too real, until Brandon didn't know where Ezekiel ended and he began.
Brandon hips moved in a fevered rhythm and teeth grazed his throat before the glide of something hot and wet could be felt tracing his pulse, then his collar, and finally his nipples. Brandon cried out and pulled at the covers. The wet moisture and the suckle of lips followed, as well as the rasp of teeth and fangs on his hard tip. Each lick and suckle...and bite more intense, lasting longer....until Brandon came undone beneath his phantom lover, squirming and breathless.
"Brandon...."
With a shutter of shock Brandon woke up and curled into a small miserable ball. His chest tight and his skin flushed.
"Ezekiel..." He whispered to himself. Not a call, just an acknowledgement of what he had seen...what he had felt. He felt insane for his thought's, but for no reason that he wanted to admit he held his chest and tried not to fall apart as the unwanted passion, the unforgettable terror and the sickening fear mixed inside, with no way out. The nightmare and the pleasure became one.
The questions built inside, but there were no answers to be found inside of his raging body.
What am I?
He asked himself, but the answer was always.
I don't know.
A dozen other questions all came to the same point.
Who was Kail?
He didn't know.
Where am I going?
He didn't know.
Why do I dream about Ezekiel?
He didn't know.
But somehow he felt the eyes out beyond his room. The claw's at his throat. THEY were out there...and their masters wouldn't be too far behind. And the one thing he did know....was that he was never going to find the answers.
He didn't deserve the answers. He deserved this pain alone.
BOOK 1 PART ONE – THE MEETING (END)
Thank you to everyone that has given me their support and encouragement until now.
There will now be a PART TWO of this BOOK. It starts now, so be aware that Part Two will continue on from this point.
Now, please enjoy this story as it unravels more and...If anyone has any suggestions...or questions feel free to ask them in the comments. I will respond as long as it's not spoiler Q's.
Part Two - The Clan Celebration Coming Soon